


Loki's Army

by anno_Hreog



Series: Children of Men [1]
Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Gen, Humor, baby Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anno_Hreog/pseuds/anno_Hreog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odin finds a baby in a temple in Jotunheim. Then he falls into Odinsleep. His men are left with the baby.</p><p> </p><p>For the norsekink prompt: <a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/10823.html?thread=23454023#t23454023">Odinsleep comes in the Temple, baby Loki found.</a> </p><p>Could be read as set it in the distant past of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/462550/chapters/797578">Fire and Hemlock</a>,  but works as a stand alone fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loki's Army

**Author's Note:**

> Vili and Vé are Odin's brothers. Iði is Tyr's jotunn cook from _Fire and Hemlock_.

\-------

“Blast it, he’s gone and fallen asleep again,” said Tyr. “Vili, take his helmet. Go tell the men we’ve won the war. Or something.”

In the middle of the jotunn temple, they found the Allfather slumped over on his stomach, dead to the world. For a moment, they’d held their breaths, grown men scared to the core that their liege might have fallen, alone, in this terrible desolate place, when they’d all but won this filthy war. Then, Tyr knelt down and felt the pulse at his throat and told them, “Odinsleep!” and they’d let out a sigh of relief.

Lord Tyr hauled him by the boots down the steps from the altar, and Vé pushed his unconscious brother heavily onto his back. Vili was the brother who resembled him most, though, in looks if not in manner or cunning. If he stood on a big rock and hollered at the troops, he could pass for Odin. 

Vé pulled off Odin’s helmet and swallowed an oath. “He’s lost an eye. Frigga’s not going to like that.”

“I’m not taking out my eye just for that,” growled Vili. “I feel stupid enough wearing this here helmet. They always know I’m not him anyways.”

“You don’t have to take your eye out, you half-wit,” said Vé, rolling his eyes at the rafters. “The men won’t know he’s lost it yet, now will they? Just go and tell them: War’s over. We won. And," he added _sotto voce_ , "try not to make him sound like the idiot that you are.”

Before they could argue, a sharp cry interrupted them, and the sound of crying echoed through the halls of ice. Tyr fumbled at the Allfather’s cloak where it was coming from. He found it soon enough. 

Nestled against the Allfather was a baby. It took one look at him and wailed even louder when the warlord took it in his arms. It was definitely making up for its size in screaming. 

“It’s a baby!” yelped Vili, uselessly, and everyone was too surprised to thump him on the back. “Why’s he got a baby?”

Tyr was clumsily trying to soothe the babe, hopping from one foot to the other in a desperate attempt at rocking. His bannerman, a strapping red-bearded young fellow, came up to him to take the child, and without thinking, Tyr snarled at him, holding the baby close. The child gurgled at that, and reached out to grab the young ensign's beard. Tyr took a step back guardedly.

“Milord, I’ve got two of my own youngsters back home,” said the bannerman. His name was Volstagg. “There, you’ve got the hang of it. I think he likes you.” And Tyr gave him a toothy grin that looked more like a grimace. His face wasn’t the sort that was used to smiling. Or goo-gooing.

“Who’s a good baby?" Volstagg was cooing. "Who’s a! Who’s a! Who’s a good little boo-boo?” The baby grabbed hold of his beard this time and yanked hard, making the big man squeak. Tyr laughed.

"Good work," he said gruffly, and Voltagg wasn't sure the lord was complimenting him or the babe.

“But why’s he got a baby?” Vili was still asking. “You don’t think the baby’s the one that conked him out, do ye? Sapped him of his strength and all? Do ye think it’s an _evil_ baby?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” growled Tyr. Vé pushed a helmet down on his brother’s head, and shoved him out the doorway of the temple. He came back, brushing the snow from his shoulders. 

“The snow’s started up again,” said Vé, and Tyr snorted. “When’s it ever not snowing in this godsforsaken place?”

“It’s going to get worse, soon,” said Vé. “These jotunn storms could last a whole season or more.”

Tyr nodded. “We’re done here. You can send the first battalion of troops back to the Bifrost site.”

“What about the babe?” asked Vé. 

“What about it?” Tyr was rocking it in a more expert fashion now. He turned to Volstagg. “What does a baby eat? Mead? Meat? Cheese?”

“Milk, milord,” said Volstagg, grinning wide. “He needs mother’s milk.”

“Get one of the Valkyrie, then,” ordered Tyr. “Get Hildr. The baby needs milk.”

“Tyr, you can’t do that!” said Vé. “Hildr won’t have any milk for a child. Besides, I want to keep _my_ eye.”

“What’s the use of hauling around them big heaving tits all the time, then?” growled Tyr. “They’ve got no milk? Don’t be daft!”

Vé sighed and rubbed his temples. “Women are not _cows_ , Tyr. They don’t always give milk. Don’t you know anything but fighting?” He turned to his brother, who had just come in from the cold. A thick blanket of snow had already settled on his shoulders and helm.

“You gave me the wrong helmet,” said Vili sullenly. “Besides, it’s cold out there, it smells like bloody carcasses, and I never know what to say. Odin’s woke up yet?” 

“Go out and find some milk,” said Vé. “Honey, too, if you can get it.”

Vili glowered at him. “Wot? I just got back in!”

“And I’m telling you to get back out!” snarled Vé. “The jotunns must have something. You,” he barked at Volstagg. “Go with him. And don’t you dare breathe a word of this to anyone. Not the Odinsleep, not the babe, none of it. Do you hear?”

Volstagg saluted smartly, and he grabbed a grumbling Vili and left the temple. Vé gathered pieces of wreckage and started a small fire, and dragged the sleeping form of his brother closer to the warmth. Tyr sat down with the child. Despite the soothing and rocking, the baby had not fallen asleep, but was staring fascinated at the way the fire glinted off the head of the wolf on Tyr’s armor.The baby swatted at it with its tiny baby hands.

“You think the babe’s his?” asked Vé. Tyr didn’t answer, except to dandle the baby, who squealed in delight at him.

“He’s not like him, not in coloring,” Vé insisted. The baby was pale, with soft black hair that stood up in tufts, and it had faint markings on its plump arms when Tyr pried inside the swaddling clothes.

“It could take after its mother,” said Tyr. 

“Some jotunn maid?” asked Vé, and Tyr looked up sharply. Vé shrugged. “It’s in a jotunn temple. Far likely that it’s part jotunn.”

“Don’t look like no jotunn I’ve ever seen,” grumbled Tyr. “It’s pure Aesir. Maybe one of the camp followers –”

“So, you’d rather it be some whore’s get than a jotunn’s?” Ignoring the scowl on Tyr’s face, Vé pulled up closer and smoothed his thumb over the baby’s forehead. The skin turned a faint blue where he’d rubbed it, and Tyr swallowed a sharp intake of breath. 

“Our own mother was a jotunn,” said Vé. “There’s no doubt about it, Tyr. Look at its skin, look at the markings. This babe’s jotunn.” He peered in further. “And a boy.”

“Then why’s Odin got him, _hmm_? Why’s the Allfather got a little _Aesir_ baby tucked up with him, _hmm_?”

A voice came from behind him. “Yup, that’s a jotunn, all right.” 

Tyr jumped and knocked his head on Vili’s chin - Vili who had been peering over his shoulder - and with a groan, Vili dropped the chain in his hands. Behind him was Volstagg, carrying bread, meats, and a wineskin, and at the end of the chain was a jotunn prisoner, his hands dripping dark blood where they’d cut the tendons. There would be no more ice daggers for him now. 

“Shhhhh!” Vé rounded on them. “I thought I told you fools to keep your mouths shut, not bring an audience. What’s _he_ doing here?” he demanded, stabbing his finger at the jotunn. 

“This here’s Iði, milord,” said Volstagg. “He’s not a bad sort. For a jotunn, that is. And I thought it best if we had someone who knew a few things around here.” He shrugged helplessly, his massive bulk shrinking under Tyr’s glower. 

“What I’m asking is,” said Vili, settling down by the fire, “is what’s a baby doing in a big old temple like this? It’s not praying, that’s fer sure.”

“Winter’s get is returned to winter,” said the jotunn solemnly, and they all whirled around to stare at him. 

“Wot’s that?” demanded Vili. 

The jotunn, Iði, gave a half-shrug. “The kit’s too small,” he said, sneering down his nose. “It wouldn’t have a chance, not even in the best of times. And this isn’t the best of times. You, Aesir, have made sure of that.”

“We didn’t start the bloody war! You did!” yelled Vili, and his brother pushed him down by the shoulder. 

“Shut up. So you just leave them to die in the cold?” Vé asked Iði. “Don’t even give ’em a chance ‘cause they’re runts?”

Iði’s face was drawn. “It’s kinder that way,” he said, “and quicker. It’s a clean death. There is no shame in that.” He looked down at his hands, and Tyr snarled and looked away. 

“Volstagg, get the banner,” said Tyr, and the ensign leapt to fetch the prized flag. “Tear it up in strips and wrap up them hands. What’re you thinking letting him bleed out like that?”

In the silence that followed, Volstagg sat down and bound up the jotunn’s hands, while Vili sorted through the viands he’d brought, mashing up bits of cheese with honey with his fingers, and putting it before the babe.

“He likes it!” said Vili, happily. “He’s eating it !” He dabbed his finger in the mess and let the child suckle on it. 

“Of course he’s eating it,” said Iði. “It’s food. He’ll eat what he can get.” 

Villi started tearing up strips of fresh meat – who Volstagg had to knock out to get fresh meat in this weather, Vé didn’t want to know. Staring at it for a second, and then at the baby, Vili put the bits of meat in his own mouth and chewed it up before putting it in the baby’s mouth.

“Wot?” he demanded, when he felt their eyes on him. “He’s not got no teeth yet. How’s he supposed to eat meat unless I mash it up for ‘im?” he grumbled. “And you lot think _I’m_ the idiot.”

“What shall we call it?” asked Tyr.

“That’s up to his father, en’t it?” asked Vili, and Vé snorted. 

“What, you mean Odin? I don’t think _ggghhhhh_ is going to cut it for a prince of Asgard,” said Vé, mimicking a snore, and they all laughed. Then they stopped all at once. _A prince of Asgard._

“You don’t mean –” 

Even Tyr, holding the baby close, didn’t dare repeat what Vé had said. The jotunn prisoner was staring at them, his mouth open in shock. Vili looked like someone had hit him over the head with something hard – again. 

“This little scrap of nothing, some bastard jotunn half-breed get, a p-p-p-p—”

Vé stared at the baby, who was cooing and playing with Tyr’s beard, and Tyr stared at it, and Vili worriedly stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth and chewed quickly, and spit it out into his palm again to feed it to the baby. 

“That’s almost… _treason,_ ” whispered Tyr. “Passing off this little nothing as a prince.”

“Odin was holding it,” said Vé. “It could be a prince. It could be Odin’s child.”

“Then again, it could _not_ ,” said Vili. “It’s not as if we could just shake him up from his snooze and ask him. ‘Oi, Allfather, is this your kid, or wot?’”

They laughed uneasily. “What can we do? We can’t hide a child for as long as Odin’s asleep,” said Vé. “You can’t keep a baby a secret. The men will know. Already too many men know.” He turned round to glare at Volstagg and Iði. 

“I’m only bandaging this here jotunn’s hands, milord,” said Volstagg in a hollow sing-song, not meeting their eyes, and Iði shrugged and said, “I do not wish to lose my eyes or my tongue as well.”

“So, will you do it, Tyr?” demanded Vé. “Will you give the jotunn babe a clean death? Even his own people see no shame in it.”

“Who said anything about killing it?” hissed Tyr. He cradled the child tightly to his chest, and his hand had gone defensively for his sword. “Don’t you speak nonsense, Vé.”

“The blood’s not dried from my sword, yet,” reasoned Vé. “The battle’s barely cooled down. Half the men out there lost a comrade or an arm or a leg or worse, and they’re thirsting for vengeance. The priests are ready to pour blood over the altar of victory. Guess what'll suit them just right?”

“We can’t go out there with a half-jotunn baby!” cried Vili. “They’ll tear it apart!” 

A clearing of the throat startled them all, and they whirled around as one. The seemingly blind, all-seeing gaze of Heimdall cast its foreboding gaze over them, like smugglers on the coast caught out by a beacon. 

Heimdall’s face was impassive as he looked over the scene. The sleeping Odin in the Hall of Winter, his two brothers, the jotunn prisoner, his hands bound up in the scarlet and silver of the wolf’s banner, and the tiny babe half-hidden in Tyr’s massive arms.

“I see you have found the child, lord Tyr,” said Heimdall, with a bow. “Prince Vili, Prince Vé.”

Vili stood up abruptly, shuffling from one foot to the other, as if he could block the baby from Heimdall’s view. “What child?”

“The child lord Tyr is holding as if it were his own,” said Heimdall impassively. “I would not get too attached to him, Lord Tyr." Tyr growled at him, but Heimdall went on, "The queen will want her baby back when we have returned to Asgard.”

“The queen,” said Vé, stupidly, and for once his brother gave _him_ a kick to shut up. 

“The queen,” said Heimdall. “She who goes by the name of Frigga? She who has given birth to a second prince while her lord was away at war? The child I brought to Jotunheim to meet his father? Unless you wish to claim that the Allfather has given birth himself to a baby boy in the middle of a jotunn temple. Anything is possible.” Heimdall, after all, was born of nine mothers.

“Given birth,” repeated Vé, collecting his wits. “Right. To this here, my nephew, uh… uh... uh….”

“Loki –” Tyr blurted out. “Your nephew, Loki –” and added, grumbling, “What? I knew a Loki once, in Utgard. He had a mean left hook, knocked out three of my teeth, the bastard.”

“Yes, Loki,” said Heimdall, deadpan – but when was Heimdall anything but deadpan? – “a jotunn name, fitting for a prince born at the height of the jotunn war.”

“A prince,” said Vé slowly, “Prince Loki,” and they all looked at the child again. He had finally fallen asleep. Volstagg was grinning wide, and for the first time, so was the jotunn, Iði. 

“Hello there, little prince,” said Tyr, rising to his feet. “Let’s go tell your army the war’s over.”


End file.
